Saturday, January 30, 2016

Box ticking

Transparency is still tricky at the BBC. The Mail seems to have tripped up new BBC TV Uber Controller Charlotte Moore on her Declaration of Personal Interests. There's an either/or box, and she'd been advised to enter Y in the positive box, yet not published the information that she was secretary of the company handling her husband's work as a cameraman.

This is a furrow ploughed before by the Mail. In May last year they noted BBC2 had commissioned a Mary Shelley/Lord Byron documentary from Oxford Scientific Films, with executive producer Steve Condie - otherwise Mr Kim Shillinglaw, husband of the Controller of BBC2 and 4. A BBC spokesman told the Mail at the time that Ms Shillinglaw made the ‘appropriate personal declarations’ but it did not publish these online for data protection reasons.

There may be more to come - BBC TV executives who have made a mark in the box "There are personal interests to declare", but published no further details include Emma Swain, Susan Hogg, Nathalie Humphreys, Roger Leatham and acting big cheese Mark Linsey.